At Connecticut College, the Office of Residence Education and Living and Office of Sustainability are working together to create the Connecticut College Lending Library, which repurposes books that are donated—or simply left behind after classes end—and loans them out to a new crop of students, ensuring they can do assigned readings for their courses. REAL Coordinator Frida Rodriguez spoke with Library Journal about the new program and where the school hopes to see it go from its miniscule beginnings in the closet of a dorm lobby.

A library loan, until now, was not a financial transaction with an immediate profit for an author. At best, a loan held out the hope of future sales and royalties. Now, the loans themselves have been monetized, provided Amazon’s neo-library does the lending.